2004-2005 scholarship Awardees
 

The IAEM Scholarship Commission chose four students to receive
scholarships for the 2004-05 school year. Those receiving awards were Carol Cwiak, Tonya Hunter, Kade Kotheimer, and Nicole Vaught. All received $500 scholarships. Kotheimer’s and Hunter’s awards were made possible through a special donation to the scholarship fund by DRI International. Awards were based on high academic standing, excellent writing skills, and commendable reference letters.

Scholarship Recipient Profiles

• Carol Cwiak is earning her Ph.D. in Emergency Management
  at North Dakota State University, and will graduate in 2006. Her
  focus areas are business continuity, public/private sector partnerships, community sustainability and practitioner’s educational needs. Carol is working on a state-funded grant that she proposed to create business continuity templates for use by
  schools, businesses and organizations throughout North Dakota.
  She also is teaching a class called Emergency Management Law
  and Ethics, a course she created for NDSU that draws on her
  background as a lawyer. She is certified by EMI as a Disaster
  Resistant Jobs Trainer and by FEMA as a CERT Trainer.
• Tonya Hunter is working toward a B.S. degree in Emergency
  Administration and Planning at the University of North Texas.
  She plans to graduate in 2005. She was inducted into Tau Sigma
  National Honor Society in the Fall of 2003, and she received the
  University President Award for a GPA of 4.0 and the Dean of
  Community Service Award in Fall 2003. She is a member of the
  student organization IEMSA. Besides attending school, Tonya is
  a full-time 911 emergency medical dispatcher for CareFlite Ambulance in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Following graduation, she plans to pursue a career as an emergency manager.
• Kade Kotheimer is working toward a B.S. degree in Emergency
  Management at the University of Akron. He completed his
  A.S. in Fire Protection Technology in December 2003 and plans to
  complete his A.S. in Criminal Justice Technology in May 2005.
  He will complete his B.S. in May 2006. He is the son of a police
  officer and has always known that he “wanted to be a part of these services so that he could help and serve his community.” He joined an Explorer program at a local fire department when he was 16. At the University of Akron, he serves as the treasurer for the Fire Protection Society and the Criminal Justice Association. He also is the risk manager for his fraternity. Currently he is employed as an emergency dispatcher for the
  University of Akron Police Department and the Stow Police and Fire Departments.
• Nicole Vaught is working toward a B.S. degree in Health Sciences with a concentration in Emergency and Disaster Management
  from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Prior to
  returning to college, she was employed as an emergency
  medical technician. She has been accepted into Stony Brook
  University’s post-baccalaureate program (to begin in 2005) in
  paramedic science, to be immediately followed by an unpaid
  emergency management internship with FDNY.